Scavenging Redemption
by Ardyn
Summary: **DISCONTINUED** Though they trailed a blaze of fire and destruction in the wake of their meeting, the path to Jamison Fawkes and Mako Routledge meeting was just as chaotic. From the Omnic Explosion that tore their lives apart, to the secret that put a bounty on Junkrat's name, discover what the two mismatched junkers are truly fighting for.


Jamison Fawkes could claim to possess many things. Some of those things didn't belong to him, sure, but nonetheless, he could claim to possess them. Treasures. Weapons. Information. Tools of the trade, to be certain. Yes, Jamison Fawkes could claim to possess many things.

A good memory was not one of those things.

Still, despite the man's memory problems, there was one memory he could not forget a single _detail_ of, no matter how hard he tried, no matter how deeply he wished to. No explosion could ring louder than the one in this memory, no blast could knock him further, no fire could scorch as deep. No matter how hard he tried, Junkrat could not create an explosion anywhere _near_ the magnitude of the one that seemed to have burnt every last inch of that memory onto his irradiated mind.

He couldn't recall when the Omnics were gifted the Outback. The war had ended the year he was born, and Jamison had been too young to understand the stories told of it. He hadn't understood the anger and outcry a few years later when the sentient cyborgs were gifted the Outback, displacing his family and friends, but he also hadn't understood _how_ they had gifted the Outback. Who was _they_ , and how was his home something they could _give_ to someone else? His mother had been so _angry_ at it all; sitting up at the ramshackle dining room table, picking at his lunch, he could remember watching his mother pacing the small living room that was basically divided from the dining room by an invisible, accepted line. She had been a beautiful woman, even when angered; long, red hair cascaded down her back in a low ponytail, short bangs framing high cheekbones. She was tall and slender, a build her son would inherit, and her hazel eyes ignited to reflect any emotion she experience, be it the fiery anger that dwelled in this memory, or a gleaming happiness of the foggy memories Jamison tried desperately to cling to even as the radiation poisoning disintegrated his mind.

Why couldn't he save _those_ memories instead?

"What do you mean _we can't go back yet_? It's been two years, surely the rust buckets have settled down? There's space enough for all of us! Our _home_ is out there, we didn't even get chance to—" A frustrated growl told young Jamison the phonecall was cut abruptly short, and his mother folded her arms in a huff for a moment, before glancing over to her son.

He had stared back with bright blue eyes, unsure and slightly sad that he didn't know how to cheer his mother up. Apparently, his presence was enough, as her features softened to a smile.

"I'm sorry, Jamie...I didn't mean to frighten you." She soothed, sighing as she set the phone down and headed to sit at the table with him. She eyed his plate with a light disapproval. "You've not eaten your carrots again."

Jamison pushed his plate away from his as far as his short little arms could manage.

"Nope." He exclaimed defiantly, "Dun like them."

"Have you tried them?"

"...Yeah..."

His mother feigned a gasp, her hands coming up to cover her mouth.

"But if you're telling the truth, why is your nose growing?!"

Jamison gave a yelp and clapped both hands over his nose, only to feel his nose hadn't grown at all. He scowled up at his mother, lips upturned as he sulked.

"Is **_not!_** "

His mother beamed down at him and ruffled his hair as she stood up again.

"Sure, but you checked, so you must have been lying. Try _one_ carrot, honey? Your dad will be home from work soon, and he'll be checking to make sure you ate all your vegetables! If you eat one carrot, I'll tell him you ate all of them. Deal?"

The blond kid looked down at his plate, eyes stricken with such grief as if his mother asked a great and valiant quest of him.

"...Okay..."

He stabbed the orange vegetable with slightly more gusto than was strictly needed, as a _rumble_ shook the house. Shocked, Jamison gave a yelp and dropped his fork, wondering for a moment what he had done to cause that noise.

He looked up just in time to see his mother turn back to look at him, eyes wide and her face frozen in shock and _fear_ , the most detailed memory of his mother that was scolded in his mind forever, as she became a shadow against a brilliant and overbright light behind her that swallowed her up, blinding him with a roar that filled the house, his ears, and then—

-It's quiet. It's so quiet. Silent. He'd never been so afraid of _silence_ , and he had come to loathe it after this day, for nothing chilled his heart to the core quite so much as the memory of that perfect _silence_.

Jamison had tried to stand, pulling himself to his knees...knee? There was blood on his hands that shook beneath him, and he dimly looked down to his knee supporting him, it looked like it should hurt but he didn't _hurt_...his right leg was just...gone?

After the momentary shock, he had started to cry. Tears cut down a soot-covered face as the boy crawled clumsily over the flattened remains of his second home. He was shouting, but he couldn't hear his own voice. Was he shouting for his mother? His father? Anyone? No one heard, no one saved him, and he was left to crawl in the ruins of his home. The sky in his memory was burning, but he couldn't say for sure whether that was an honest detail or one of the scars in his mind playing tricks on him.

Perhaps that's how it looked to him that day.

He had scrambled about in the broken wood and metal of his home for hours, searching for anyone, face flooded with cascading tears as he cried. He'd passed out before long, and someone had finally found him. He'd woken, leg bandaged crudely with cloth and rags, and turned his head meekly to try and figure out where he was. A thrown-together hospital, it seemed like, made from one of the huts that had on suffered a little damage from whatever explosion had ripped through his life in that second. People were lying on the floor, though he seemed to have been given a mattress to rest on.

Jamison had wanted to cry again, to ask where his mother was, had they found her too, was she here? But he couldn't. For all the world, it felt like he was _empty_. Hollow, numb, he'd later know this was shock. His young mind wondered if there was something broken in his eyes that he couldn't cry, and he'd turned to look at the shattered glass in the window by his bed.

Within one of the shards, he caught sight of his reflection. Tufts of hair remained on a burnt head, surrounding bald patches where his hair had scolded away. Soot still smeared over his face, decorated in cuts. But, most strikingly of all, his _eyes._ Gone were the usual blue hues he was used to seeing in his reflection, for the irises seemed to have _burnt_ to amber.

Those amber orbs were glassy and dull, and he could not weep.

His hearing was still pierced with a shrill ringing, but he could make out muffled voices in the next room, deciding to focus on them instead. Maybe they were talking about survivors? Maybe they would mention his family, maybe they were okay...how could he still hope if he couldn't even _cry_?

"...Omnium...bloody idea was it...the core?!"

"...didn't know...radioac..."

"...Wh...Mako?"

"Out looking...surv...found the kid...went back to..."

"...on't find an...literated..."

The memory crumbled at this point, like sand through his fingers. Jamison blinked, snapping back out of his recollection back to the present day. It must have been twenty years since that day now, though it didn't feel like that long. He gazed up at the starry sky above him, arms folded under his head which were themselves resting on a huge tire. He probably shouldn't be using the large remote-controlled explosive as a pillow, but hey, he figured if he was meant to die in an explosion, the Omnium Explosion would have done the trick.

He'd later found out the man who found him in the rubble was one of the Australian Liberation Front. Apparently, these idiots had sabotaged the reactor core within the Omnium with the intent of blowing up and displacing the _omnics_ as revenge for displacing them. Well, in fairness to the mastermind who cooked that plan up, it _worked_. Only, it displaced _everyone_ , wiping out humans and omnics alike. The few humans who survived were plague with radiation poisoning, either dying soon after or ever-so-slowly, getting the enjoy the crippling pain and side effects on the way. Junkrat figured he was the latter at this point. Regardless, he'd stayed with the Liberation Front for some of his youth, before running off on his own. Turned out, he had a knack for scavenging, which was trade that grew quickly in the wake of the Omnium Explosion. Everything had a price, scrap metal, bolts, food, water, information. Those with a high tolerance for radiation could go scavenging in the more dangerous ruins of the Outback, and Junkrat had become famous for taking those risks, getting those rare treasures, and accepting a decent price for his work. It was survival of the fittest, a game Jamison had learnt to master. Everything had a price, and everyone was out for themselves.

Easy.

The knowledge didn't upset him any more than being alone did. It wasn't _knowledge_ to him so much as simply his life. He'd grown up alone, surviving on his own. Why should it cross his mind this was not normal, that this was a reason to be sad? He was quite happy, taking pride at how _good_ he was at surviving. Besides, he didn't need to cry. He _couldn't_ cry, right?

His family were still waiting for him in the ruins. He would find them, and then everything would be happy again anyway. It was the thought that comforted Jamison as he drifted off to sleep in his makeshift camp, for his battered and scarred mind had never truly accepted the stark fact of that day. Perhaps he simply _couldn't_ compute it, the idea that his family was long dead. Perhaps it would be the weight that finally crippled his irradiated mind to ashes. But to the mad junker, it made perfect sense; no one found his family that day, so they must still be out there. He just needed to find them.

Easy.

 _ **To be continued.**_


End file.
